


Ruined

by inkstainedwretch



Category: Vampire Chronicles - Anne Rice
Genre: Armand is possessive, Armand tops, Blood Play, Daniel is Mortal, Daniel is a masochist, M/M, Minor Character Death, Vampire Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-06
Updated: 2017-09-06
Packaged: 2018-12-24 11:14:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12011556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inkstainedwretch/pseuds/inkstainedwretch
Summary: Daniel’s getting tired of the games, tired of Armand just watching. He wants to feel that cold skin, that inhuman strength, those blade-sharp teeth. God, what is wrong with him?(Can be a prequel toImpatience, if you like.)





	Ruined

**Author's Note:**

> I have not read any VC books past Body Thief.

I was starting to get kind of sick of this, honestly. We’d been out in the city, in the courtyard by the book store where the cool kids liked to congregate, for something like half the night. Armand continued to chat up the bronzy boy across from us, and I was really starting to wonder what was taking him so long. Any other night, he would’ve invited him to one of the hotels at least an hour ago – and I knew the kid wanted him to. Even without the benefit of mind reading, the way he was looking at Armand was less than subtle. Honestly, I wanted Armand to do it, too; the kid looked just like him.

There was nothing quite so scorching as a night when Armand found someone who resembled him. Their skin was always darker, obviously, but when he found someone close to the same height, the same build, and always, always with auburn hair…I’d never seen him fail to get them to come with us.

I always thought of him, when I was in bed with the night’s guest. No matter the age or race or gender, it was always him. Everything I did was for him, every kiss, every touch I gave them, every word I said. When they moaned, when they held me tight and clawed at me, when their backs snapped up and they started to shake, it was all meant for him. It was so much easier to pretend when they had his height, his eyes. It was so much _more_ , when I could take my glasses off and see nothing but fair skin and auburn hair.

I knew it got to him, too, with the way his eyes always burned while he watched me. First time he’d ever killed one of them in front of me, the girl had been pale and russet-haired. He’d just pounced on her, barely a second after I’d pulled back. That was how it went nearly every time we did this now. It scared the fuck out of me, every single time, but I’d be a liar if I said it didn’t turn me on. He still looked so hungry, when he let them go and turned back to me. Sometimes he kissed me, and his whole mouth tasted like blood, and it disgusted me how much I loved it.

God, I loved it when he kissed me. He felt warm, when he’d just fed, but when he was cold…there was nothing like it. There was nothing like _him_. I’d never been so magnetized to someone before Armand, not even when I’d run into Louis. Louis had scared me, enticed me, sure. Armand…I was fucking _terrified_ of Armand. But something had happened to me during that interview, and now it gave me this fucked-up thrill, thinking about how strong he was, how easily he could kill me.

I wanted that. I wanted to have it, not that Armand would ever give it to me, but I also wanted to _feel_ it. I wanted Armand to use his strength on me, like he did on his victims, shove me up against the wall, kiss me hard, tear my shirt open and get his teeth in my throat. I didn’t know if vampires could even do some of the stuff I thought about, but it didn’t stop my imagination. I mean yeah, I’d tasted his blood, and he’d taken mine more than once, but I wanted to _touch_ him. The closest we ever got to that was these lookalikes.

So, what was taking him so long? Was he doing this to mess with me? It seemed like he did nothing _but_ that, most days. He said something to the boy I didn’t hear, and I sighed, maybe a little louder than I should have. I saw the shift in his posture that meant he’d noticed, and just when I was hoping he’d do something, he relaxed again. I might’ve rolled my eyes, at this point. Why was I here? This was all his game. He didn’t need me. Maybe if I took off again, he’d let me go this time. He could find someone else to order around, and I could just go back to…whatever the hell I’d had before all this.

He was standing now, and so was the kid, and without a word I followed them out to the sidewalk. The boy gave me a grin, his eyes raked over me, and I smiled at him out of habit. His eyes had been on Armand the whole night. We both wanted the same thing, but neither of us were about to get it.

It was a blur, getting to the hotel room, and when the door shut, Armand took his usual seat by the bed. I reached for the boy immediately, unbuttoning him, sliding my hands over his shoulders when I pushed the shirt off of him. He kissed me, undid my belt, and I fell into the familiar hunger that always set in when we did this. He wasn’t as short as Armand, but he was shorter than me, his hair was long enough for me to run my fingers through it, and when I kissed his neck I looked over his shoulder at Armand. His eyes were on fire.

When we were both undressed, I made to pull us to the bed, but then Armand spoke, and my heart about stopped.

“Wait.”

He _stood_ , and then he walked over to us, and I felt something like dread twisting in my chest. The boy turned away from me to face him, and Armand gave him an appraising sort of look. I wondered what the hell was happening, as Armand ran a hand over his shoulder, and right when the poor kid started to reach for him, he yanked him down and bit into his neck.

“ _Jesus_ –”

I stumbled back, watching wide-eyed as he drank and drank. He made these rough, gasping sort of noises, drinking so quickly, I watched his cheeks redden in a matter of seconds. He stared straight at me the whole time, looking me right in the eye, and his gaze could have seared my flesh. God, I was so hard it almost hurt.

When he let go, he licked a drop of blood from his lips, but his eyes didn’t leave me.

“Don’t move.”

Then he was gone, quick as a flash through the window I hadn’t even known could open, taking the body with him. I wondered what the hell was going to happen next, but I knew better than to try and find out. I knew he was getting rid of the body, but what about when he got back? He’d never done this before, never interrupted things before they even got started. Was he mad at me? Honestly, I could never tell.

Armand was fucking confusing. One night he’d yank me out of bed and make me go buy him a new food processor, and the next he’d spend dusk to dawn sprawled across the sofa (and sometimes across me), watching TV for something like eleven solid hours. What the hell _was_ he? Five hundred years old, or so I’d been told, and he had all the capriciousness and impulsivity of your average house cat. Was this a vampire thing, or was this just him?

I didn’t have enough time to think too hard about it, because all at once, he was standing in front of me again, and my heart was pounding against my ribs.

In a blur of movement, he grabbed me by the arms and shoved me down onto the bed. He looked _hungry_ , looking down at me, and a drop of blood fell from his lip onto my cheek. He leaned down and licked it off, but there was still blood on his tongue, so he just made it worse. He’d probably kept some of it in his mouth, just so that would happen.

“Is this what you want, Daniel?” he asked, grinning red.

Like he couldn’t tell. I felt my pulse rush through every inch of my skin, nowhere more than where he touched me. I couldn’t move; he was sitting on my hips, and we were so close to each other, closer than we’d ever been. I would’ve been shaking, if he hadn’t been holding me down so completely. To hell with dignity, then.

“…yes,” I said.

He ground his hips down onto me, just once, just enough for me to feel the scratch of his clothing against my skin. I gasped, then moaned, and I shivered as much as I could. He kissed me, deeply and slowly so I tasted blood, blood that wasn’t mine or his. The blood of a dead man, the man Armand had killed so he could get to me. My hands grasped uselessly at the sheets. Fuck, I wanted him.

“Oh, you’re ruined, aren’t you?” he murmured, and his hands let me go, but I didn’t move. “You can never go back. Nothing in the kingdom of the sun could ever satisfy you now.”

He brought a hand up to my face, his thumb smearing the blood on my cheek.

“It’s been more than a century since I took a mortal to bed,” he said.

He hauled me up by the shoulders, until I sat upright, and he took hold of my hands so he could bring them to his shirt.

“Undress me.”

His tone was teasing, almost mocking, like he was challenging me to follow through on everything I’d thought about him. I pulled his shirt up with a shaking breath, hardly daring to touch him. I couldn’t help but stare, as I undid his belt, unbuttoning his pants and sliding the fabric down over his hips. He twisted out of them, kicking everything to the floor, and then lying on his back he looked up at me with an impish grin.

“Oh, I know,” he said. “I’m just too beautiful to be real.”

Not the words I’d have used, but he wasn’t wrong. Fuck, he was _gorgeous._ And I mean, it wasn’t exactly the first time I’d seen him undressed, but this was different. This was serious. So yeah, I was staring, and I might have been shaking. By the time he sat up again, climbed on top of me too slowly, too gently for me to believe, I was definitely shaking.

“You want me,” he said with a grin, and then he pushed me down into the mattress again.

He slid his hips over mine, and without the fabric between us I felt the slide of skin against skin. My head snapped sideways as I moaned, nearly throwing my glasses off my face. His thumb pushed them back into place as he turned me to face him. He kissed me, and when he spoke I felt his breath starting to cool against my lips.

“I can hear you, you know,” he said. “Every thought in your mind. You _love_ this. You love how strong, how cold and vicious I am. I’m so small, I’m so beautiful, but it’s so easy for me to hurt you.”

He gripped my face hard enough that I felt his nails cut into my skin. His other hand clutched at my neck, pressing just enough that I felt it, though he could’ve snapped my spine without even trying. I moaned again, and I leaned into the pain. I wanted more. His skin was getting colder, and it made me shiver each time he touched me.

“You love it,” he hissed, squeezing so I felt the sting of his nails again, “because you love me.”

My eyes fluttered closed, and now my jaw started to tremble. I’d never said those words to him, not out loud, but of course he knew. Of course he fucking knew. Because I did. I loved him so much, this murderous creature, this demon with an angel’s face. I didn’t know what I’d do without him, even though I’d tried being without him more than once. Fuck, I really was ruined.

“Yes,” I sighed.

He held my face in both hands now, his body pressing down on me like stone. He kissed me hard, and the way he moaned wasn’t too different from the way he sounded when he fed. There was an edge of need to it, though, a sort of raise in pitch that hit me straight between the legs. He was turned on, too. Oh god, I was gonna die if he didn’t do something soon.

He lifted up and stuck two fingers in his mouth, his breathing heavy as he slid them back and forth. They were covered in blood when he removed them, and the sound I made was nothing short of desperate. He shifted up to rest on his knees, my legs on either side of him. Then he reached down and slid the first one in without any ceremony, and my head rolled back with a shout. He kissed my neck, and now his lips were cold, and I leaned into him as much as I could.

“I could kill you right now,” he said. “Or maybe I could just have a taste, let your lust flow over my tongue. I can smell it in your blood. I want it.”

I felt both his fingers now, hard and fast, and now that he wasn’t holding me down as much, I could tilt my hips to meet him. It was so good, almost too good, and if he kept talking like this, the whole thing was about to end before it began. He leaned in and whispered right into my ear, and there was enough pinch to his voice that I could believe he really felt it, that he might not have been acting just to get to me.

“That’s what this is really about,” he said. “I want you. I want your blood, and I want your body, and that makes you feel _powerful_.”

My eyes flew open with a gasp, and if he hadn’t stopped moving his hand right then, it would have been over. He moved back again, pushing my legs out of the way. He kept a hand on my chest while he slid into me, _cold_ , cold and fucking perfect. Then he was over me again, solid and heavy as granite, holding me down by the arms.

He wasn’t gentle, not in the goddamned slightest. He kissed me viciously, biting my lip, and he moved with enough force that I felt it in my bones. I had to fight to keep my eyes open, because I wanted to see him. I wanted to know it was him. I’d never heard him like this, all out of control, moaning so roughly it was almost a growl. I kept my eyes on his face, red-lipped and dark-eyed, almost angry, twisted with feeling like I almost never saw it.

God, it felt so fucking good, feeling him drive into me, feeling his arms hold me still like iron bars, feeling him kiss me like he wanted to eat me alive. Something was _wrong_ with me, but it felt too good for me to care. All I knew was I wanted more of it. I wanted his teeth in my skin. I wanted his blood in my mouth. I wanted his hands to hold me so tightly, they left bruises. I wanted him to fuck me until I lost my voice from screaming.

He bit my tongue, halfway in his mouth as it was, and then he was moaning loudly at the taste of my blood. He sucked, pulled it into his mouth, and it stung like hell, and I felt the way he moaned greedily as he drank. It dripped from him when he came back up, smiling wickedly at me. He was a nightmare, all sharp teeth and gleaming eyes, and it looked damn good on him.

“It turns you on, doesn’t it?” he asked. “Knowing you’re in bed with a monster.”

I saw him bite his lip, and when he kissed me, little firecrackers started to go off under my skin. I couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore, and they screwed shut at the way his blood sent sparks through me. I moaned loudly, even more so when he drew back, and now I could barely breathe from how good it felt. Fuck, _nobody_ else could do this to me, nobody else could fuck me up like this and make it so goddamn good.

“ _Fuck me_ ,” I panted. “Fuck me, Armand…”

He gave a sort of whine, and it turned into another growl, and then I felt his mouth on my neck. I only felt the edge of his fang, but it made me gasp.

“Say my name,” he hissed.

“ _Armand_ …” I sighed.

“Again.”

He bit down, and I shouted into his ear. I felt the pull in my veins when he drew the blood from me, the sticky slide of his tongue on my skin, and more than anything the heat of my blood trapped by his cold lips. I wanted desperately to hold onto him, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t move, _I couldn’t move_.

“Armand,” I moaned, my eyes screwing shut, “Armand, fuck, Armand, _Armand_ –”

My voice stopped for a second, when I finally overloaded, so I heard Armand moaning even more than I felt it. I could feel my pulse where he had his teeth in me, getting faster as it hit me again, and again, and again. He held me so tightly, I felt his fingernails dig into my arms, and he started shaking and _snarling_ against my skin, and oh fuck, he was coming. My voice came back all at once, and I just screamed, feeling my eyes start to water. It felt like I was on _fire_ , like I was just going to burn up and turn into ash. I couldn’t ever get enough of it. God, I was so fucked up.

Armand recovered before I did, no surprise there. He let go of my neck, let go of me completely, and only when I felt him kissing me again did I have it in me to open my eyes. He looked down at me with perfect serenity, like he hadn’t just lost his damn mind a minute ago.

“My Daniel,” he whispered. “Oh, it feels good, knowing you’re mine.”

Fuck it, there were tears in my eyes now. I leaned up and kissed him, and I made little breathless sounds into his mouth. I could barely believe any of it had just happened. He wasn’t holding me down anymore, but I still didn’t move. I wanted to, but I wasn’t sure if I should. After a second, he reached for my arm and picked it up, bringing it up around him.

“Go on,” he murmured, and I did.

I touched him everywhere I could, cold hard skin in such a delicate shape. It was so good, to finally feel it, to feel the sloping planes of his chest, the angles of his hips, the hard lines of his neck and collarbone. God, I was _gone_. There was no hope for me. Even if I did leave, I wouldn’t know what the hell to do with myself.

“I love you,” I said it like I’d just realized something horrible. “Oh god, I love you.”

Armand smiled, and now he pulled his nail along the side of his neck, inviting me in to drink. I was _loud_ , when his blood filled my mouth, burning through me as though we’d done it all again. There was nothing like the feeling of it, liquid heat that sparked and crackled all the way up my spine, strengthened by the way I heard him panting softly into my ear. I felt the cuts and bruises heal, erasing the damage he’d done. On the surface, anyway. There wasn’t any amount of blood that could fix the rest of me.

I was panting for breath, when he pulled me away again. He licked a stray drop of blood that had fallen from the corner of my mouth, and then he sat up. He climbed off of me, and god, I missed him terribly. He nodded toward the bathroom door, his expression back to the impassive mask I’d gotten used to.

“We should go home,” he said.

I felt weak, when I sat up. I knew he hadn’t taken _that_ much blood, but I still felt drained. I was exhausted, to be sure, but I didn’t feel hollow, or empty, or cheated somehow, the way I usually did on nights like this. That was something.

I took my clothes with me into the bathroom, cleaned myself off, and got dressed again. Putting my shirt back on, I ran my thumb over where he’d bitten me, and to my surprise, it caught on a little smear of blood. The bite was gone, but the evidence was still there. I was stunned. Armand never spilled any blood, not when he drank from me, but there it was. He’d lost his perfect composure, lost his control, even if it was only for a second.

Curiously, I touched it to my tongue, and it was just the same watery copper I’d gotten used to. I wasn’t sure what I expected, really. But something compelled me to do it again, and I swiped my thumb over the skin until I’d gotten all of it. I swirled my tongue around it, trying to taste as much as I could. A pulse of heat went through me, dulled by exhaustion but no less potent.

In the corner of my eye, I caught sight of myself in the mirror. The man who looked back at me was half-dressed, with dried blood on his cheek and dark, heated eyes. His hair was a damn mess, his hands were faintly trembling, and he was licking his own blood off of the pad of his thumb. He looked out of breath, like he could barely stand, but most of all, he looked unhinged. He looked fucking crazy.

I laughed softly, my fingers fumbling with the buttons of my shirt.

“Jesus, Molloy,” I muttered. “You’re in too deep. This is gonna kill you, you know that, right?”

Armand opened the bathroom door, impeccably dressed, and with a roll of his eyes, he walked over and buttoned me up in less than an instant.

“Come on,” he said, walking out of the room so quickly, I had trouble keeping up.

I kept up, though. I had to. I couldn’t lose this. I was so screwed, and I knew it, and I didn’t fucking care. I was too crazy to care. How could I not be? How the hell could anyone come across one of these gorgeous, bloodthirsty monsters and not completely lose it? I was gonna die because of him, whether or not he killed me himself, and I knew it.

If he did it, though? If the last thing I felt was him holding me still, keeping me from moving while he drank everything I had? …not a bad way to go.

**Author's Note:**

> The "more than a century" line references [Interlude with the Undead](http://kilagan.tripod.com/dwellers/index-rice.html), for what it's worth.


End file.
